falling damage

and a level 20 barbarian is a mini-Hulk...

Quote from Ravnodaus >>

It could be construed as knocking them in any cardinal direction you want. At that point, actually. 

Because if you're directly above them, and they moved 20ft in any direction, they're now farther from you. And so that's "away from you". And "in a straight line." too.

 

 But it doesn't say "away from you in a straight line" as two separate things that simply both need to be true. It says "straight away from you" which is a radial line. If you are directly above them, then the radial is directed downwards, not to the side, and they are blocked by the ground.

That said, if you do allow this kind of pushing, just make sure you are consistent. The same logic applies on the plane of the ground when pushing directly into a wall. If you allow pushing from directly above to result in movement along the ground, then you also have to allow pushing directly into a wall result in movement along the wall.

Quote from jeswatkins1 >>

Hey dnd players! I'm playing a warlock with the repelling blast invocation and misty step with winged boots. If I were to misty step above a creature then repelling blast them down with two beams of eldritch blast with repelling blast straight into the ground (20 ft movement directly away from me) , then procede to hover above them, would the creatuire taek some kind of fall damage? OR is it just the normally bludgeoning damaging?

 To answer this definitively, per RAW, you only suffer "fall damage" if you fall. Being pushed into an object (in this case, the ground, but this applies to being pushed into walls, large boulders, etc.) would not cause your target to suffer fall damage (though additional environmental hazards might apply, such as being pushed into a spike pit, vat of acid, etc.). In this instance, because you are directly above them, you would deal the normal force damage dealt by Eldritch Blast with no additional effect. The rules do their best to replicate physics, but ultimately, where there's a gap in physics, the rules prefer consistency over reality.

Typical caveat applies: RAW is not god, DM gets to make the ultimate call, if they want to add this effect, they may.